[CIVIL WAR]. Letter with graphic content describing the Battle of Antietam written by Samuel Clark, 5th Pennsylvania Reserves. Camp on Bank of the Potomac, Washington Co., MD, 21 September 1862.

3 1/2 pages, 5 x 8 in. Old folds, toning to folds, paper clip crease to upper left.

In this letter to his niece, Samuel Clark writes, in part:

...We have been marching and fighting since the tenth of August, the fight at Bull Run was on the 29th and 30th of Aug., we lost in the Reg. about twenty killed and wounded on the last day at Bull Run just before our left wing give way, a minie ball struck me on the hip, it went through my haversack and lodged against my bayonet. I reckon you heard of our forces skedadled [sic] to Centreville, on last Sunday the 14th we had a regular brush with the Rebs on Middletown Heights or South Mountain Pass, there has been so many battles that I can't recollect the names. The Rebs left on Sunday night all in a regular skedadle [sic] and left their dead and wounded on the field, our men took over two thousand five hundred prisoners on Sunday and Monday, and last Tuesday night the Rebs made another stand eight miles further, the line of battle was eight miles long. Wednesday morning before day the ball opened, the Rebs doing their best till dark, they tried our line right and left and centre but there was no break in it, our men shelled them while crossing. Maryland is clear of Rebels, they was glad to get back without visiting Pennsylvania. I came over the battlefield on Friday, I could stand and count dead Rebs by the hundreds, one place they had a battery planted, the shells from our cannon had killed 20 Rebs and 6 horses in one place, they have been burying four days and not done yet, a good number never will be buried. There is an old mill full of wounded Rebs and barns full of them near here, Rebel physicians attending them. Enclosed you will find a Rebel button I cut off from a dead Rebel...[button not included with the lot].

Signed by Samuel Clark, with instructions to "Direct to Washington, DC, Same as before, 5th Reg, Co. B, PRC." The Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps was originally created by Pennsylvania as a state defense force when war began. The unit was quickly sent to help build the Army of the Potomac in 1861, and it fought in many important battles throughout the war, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg.

Bob Zeller Civil War Collection

This lot is located in Cincinnati.